Natasha Lomas

Natasha is a reporter for TechCrunch, joining September 2012, based out of London. She arrives after a stint reviewing smartphones for CNET UK and, prior to that, more than five years covering business technology for silicon.com (now folded into TechRepublic.com). At silicon she focused on mobile and wireless, telecoms and networking, and IT skills issues, and has also freelanced for organisations including the Guardian and the BBC. Natasha studied English at Cambridge University, and also holds an MA from Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Latest from Natasha Lomas

It’s taken a lot longer than Nokia hoped it would but Windows Phone is finally getting an official Instagram client. The photo-sharing social network, which has north of 150 million monthly active users, has been on iOS some three years, and on Android since April 2012. Now it’s coming to Windows Phone within “weeks”, according to Nokia.
The news was confirmed… Read More

Unbounded Robotics has come out of stealth — as the latest and last spin off from open source robotics maker and incubator Willow Garage, which created the PR2 robotics research and development platform, and was itself set up with a vision to make autonomous personal robotics. That mission provided a little tougher than founder, Scott Hassan, originally thought when he set it up back… Read More

Russia’s Yandex, which competes with Google in areas such as search, maps, translation services and more, and is the dominant search engine in its home market (reporting a 61.7% share, back in July). Now it’s setting its sights on Google Analytics — announcing the launch today of a free analytics tool for mobile developers using the Android, iOS or Windows Phone platforms. Read More

The tablet category is continuing to eat the PC’s lunch, albeit it’s a large lunch so the feast is taking a while. Analyst Gartner expects worldwide tablet shipments to grow 53.4% this year, with shipments reaching 184 million units. And while traditional PCs are still shipping a lot more units (303,100 forecast for this year), those shipments are continuing to decline —… Read More

Are you spending too much time looking at what your friends are posting on Instagram and Facebook, and not enough time hanging out with each other IRL? The founders of Ketchuppp think so. Their answer to this problem is of course another app — one that’s designed to help you meet your buddies when you happen to be near enough to do so. In other words: a proximity-based social… Read More

doctape Viewer, an app which competes with the likes of Documents by Readdle and GoodReader by letting mobiles users view file types not supported natively on their OS, has landed on Android as a paid app costing $2.49/€1.99. That’s introductory pricing — the normal selling price will be around $5/€3.99, although the startup says a free version with optional… Read More

Chinese phone and PC maker Lenovo has once again been linked with a potential BlackBerry acquisition. Yesterday the Wall Street Journal suggested Lenovo is actively considering a bid for all of BlackBerry. However, according to Reuters, which cites a source familiar with the matter, Lenovo is likely only after parts of BlackBerry pie — owing to regulatory obstacles that would stand in… Read More

FlyKly Smart Wheel is a Kickstarter project that wants to turn your boring old pedal bike into a sneakily pedal-assisted electro-bike by sticking an electric motor in the back wheel. Or, more specifically, by replacing your old geared (or non-geared) back wheel with its Smart Wheel, and adding an app into the mix to control the speed. The app is also used for locking and unlocking the smart… Read More

Word-prediction Android keyboard maker SwiftKey, which closed a $17.5M Series B led by Index Ventures last month and whose keyboard software runs on millions of mobile devices, has launched a new version, SwiftKey 4.3, that let’s users customise the size and position of the on-screen keyboard — with the idea being to ensure a more comfortable typing position, regardless of device… Read More

BitLock is a smart lock for your bike that uses Bluetooth LE/4.0 to do away with physical keys — allowing you to lock and unlock your ride based on the proximity of your smartphone to your bike (or directly within the app). The device exists in prototype form only for now, as its San Francisco-based makers are seeking $120,000 on Kickstarter to go into production. Read More

A U.K. parliamentary committee has widened the scope of a planned inquiry into the legislative framework governing national intelligence agencies’ access to private information, triggered by the PRISM revelations in the U.S. It will now consider more broadly the impact of mass surveillance on individuals’ right to privacy. Read More

Cloud-based map platform startup MapBox, which gives developers tools to add interactive maps to their web and mobile offerings, clad in their own brand colours/designs — and counts foursquare, Uber, GitHub, Evernote and the FT among its 2,500+ paying subscribers — has just closed a $10 million Series A from Foundry Group. The raise was announced in a blog on MapBox’s website. Read More

Israeli indie mobile games studio, PlayArt Labs, has its eye on the educational gaming space, with a special focus on tapping into cultural learning. The studio launched an iPad game called Artistico back in July, and is now expanding the reach of the app with an iPhone launch, with help from a $100k private angels round. Read More

Another day, another social mobile shopping app on the march. U.K.-based Depop, which was founded in 2011 but launched officially in April this year, has just closed a $1 million seed round, from several fashion industry-focused investors: the round was led by Red Circle Investments, and joined by Luca Marzotto. Read More

Social shopping and deals-focused startup Shopcade, which launched out of the U.K. in November 2011, has raised £2.5 million (circa $4 million) to accelerate its growth on mobile. Investors in the funding round include Pascal Cagni, formerly head of Apple’s European business from 2000 to 2012, and Michel Combes, CEO of telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent and ex-CEO of Vodafone Europe. Read More

Berlin-based MOOCs startup iversity, which last year began a pivot away from online learning collaboration tools with the aim of becoming the Coursera of Europe, is launching its first clutch of free online courses today. Initial student sign-ups have exceeded 100,000, with a 24-strong course curriculum. Read More

Woojer is a wearable mobile accessory designed to allow its wearer to feel what they’re listening to on their mobile device — via the medium of haptic feedback — rather than simply having banging tunes inserted into their earholes. It’s also being aimed at gamers who want a more immersive in-game experience, or for watching movies or other audiovisual content on a… Read More

There’s a bit more money sloshing around the U.K.’s high tech Cambridge cluster, thanks to a new fund that’s just been set up. The Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC) fund has launched with an initial £50 million to invest, and a remit to help tech startups focus on developing their ideas and technology — rather than having to divert energy in the short term to… Read More

A press release announcing that Samsung had acquired a Swedish fingerprint biometrics company was distributed on Business Wire and elsewhere earlier this morning. Samsung has since confirmed that the release was false and that it is not acquiring Fingerprint Cards. Fingerprint Cards has also since issued a denial of the report.
Despite the acquisition having been denied by both companies… Read More

London-based app developer/digital UI studio ustwo’s psychedelic Whale Trail mobile game has racked up more than 3.68 million downloads across Android and iOS since being released in October 2011. The app has also just broken even. For its next trick ustwo wants to turn Whale Trail into a kids’ TV show. Read More